Yesterday, I wrote: Well, the power just went out, so it's time for me to pack up my Mac and head out to a cafe with WiFi where I can work on my novel in front of people and get this posted. The weird thing is, while it's likely going to take an hour at least from the time I finish writing this...

Hello Wil and everyone else,
Short time reader, long time fan, blah blah blah. Anyway!
This particular post has inspired me to get off of the mental couch and respond, because it touches on a theory (...or is that hypothesis? I never remember the difference...) that I've been toying with for a few years now that I have dubbed "Fractal Conciousness".
I am far from a religious person, but I came across an image that simply blew me away, and like your experience, became some sort of epiphany for me. That image was simply two pictures put side by side, with the caption along the lines of, "can you name these images"?
Well, of course I could, they were obviously pictures of space, duh! But when I clicked on over to the answer, I was stunned at the possibilities that opened before me in that instant. You see, the picture on the right was indeed a picture of space, but the picture on the left was not. It was an image of neurons firing off in the brain!!
See: http://medgadget.com/archives/2009/05/every_cell_is_precious_every_cell_is_great.html
And See: http://astroufo5.pe.tripod.com/IC1340.GIF
(I'm too lazy to put them together for you, but open 'em up in a few browser windows and compare).
I get frustrated that I cannot find the exact image and comparison I saw, because I've not been able to replicate in a manner that connects with me the exact same way the image did.
Anyway, I spent the rest of that day and night letting the implications soak into my coffee-addled brain. That led me to Fractals (of which I'm sure you've looked at before a time or two being the geek you are). Just like in Cartography, that image of those neurons in that brain firing away was a mini image of the activity photographed in Space.
Then I got to thinking about how everything is connected, from Space on down to the smallest spec (ala Horton Hears a Who), but we just can't see it.
Your story reminded me of that. It was funny that you can categorize your life in such a way, pre and post, because I came to the same type of conclusion in a round about way.
I keep trying to search for 'Fractal Conciousness', but I've never found anything that quite ties it together the way I'm looking for. Nothing yet. I kind of felt like the one fish that got sucked out just to be put back in, unable to share what I had learned!
I still dig Fractals, and the number Phi (but that's an entirely different story). I was in the Spiritual section of Barnes and Noble the other day with a friend who is into that stuff, and I noticed that Fractals were mentioned in a spiritual context on the cover of some book that failed to grab my total attention.
Perhaps there are others out there of a scientific persuasion who are getting closer to being able to explain what excites us so much.
Anyway, thanks for allowing me to ramble on.
Amber

Yesterday, I wrote: Well, the power just went out, so it's time for me to pack up my Mac and head out to a cafe with WiFi where I can work on my novel in front of people and get this posted. The weird thing is, while it's likely going to take an hour at least from the time I finish writing this...